


Let Me Go Home

by novelogical (writingmonsters)



Category: Burnt (2015)
Genre: Adam and Tony Each Have Lots of Issues, As Is Everything With These Two, First Time, I Suppose is the Relevant Tag Here, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Porn with Feelings, Reunited and It Feels So Good, Sort of? - Freeform, it's complicated - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 14:46:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17347151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingmonsters/pseuds/novelogical
Summary: “Look. I know I fucked everything up then, but I loved you. I really did -- I do.”“You didn’t.” It's barely more than a whisper, the words caught at the back of his throat. “You didn’t -- you don’t.”“I do.” Adam strokes his thumb across the swell of Tony's cheek, shifting to try and meet his gaze. “Jesus, it took me long enough to figure it out once I quit frying my brain with coke, but why do you think I always came back to you?”Tony finds Adam in the hotel room. Things go differently.





	Let Me Go Home

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Michael Buble's "Home".
> 
> This is equal parts an exercise in “if Tony had been a woman, he would have been Adam’s ex and they would have gotten all raunchy with the make-up sex in the first five minutes of that reunion at the Langham” and “just slam dunk me in the Sin Bin”.

__My words were cold and flat  
And you deserve more than that  
  
Let me go home  
I'm just too far from where you are  
I wanna come home

Whatever it is Kaitlin says next, Tony is no longer listening -- doesn’t hear a word. He is still caught on “he says he knows you from Paris. He called you Little Tony.”

It’s like someone has taken a whisk to Tony’s brain and  _ stirred _ . There are snatches of thoughts rising up, whirling away in the static. He has gone numb, breathless.

_ Little Tony. _

And there it is. Written in big, scrawling letters across the menu board -- the familiar handwriting, the nickname with all its implications -- just tossed onto the table. Left where anyone could see it. And it’s too intimate, too revealing; Tony picks it up with trembling fingers. Presses it to his chest.

_ Adam _ .

The prodigal son -- the tragedy, the catastrophe. The  _ almost _ . In so many ways an ‘almost’. He is alive, he has come back. It sends a thrill through Tony, a sting of something like elation. And then fury; at himself, at Adam-fucking-Jones.

Of course, he turns on his heel with the menu board still pressed against his heart. Of course, he slips out of the dining room and off in the direction of the elevators. Of course, he will find Adam in room 659 and he will likely forgive him for all his sins.

He would still love the man, if given half a chance. And he hates it.

It takes an eternity, the elevator ride from the first floor to the sixth, and Tony spends the duration chiding himself, shifting his weight from foot-to-foot, adjusting the knot of his tie -- to tight, it’s suddenly hard to breathe -- smoothing invisible stray hairs. 

Tony silently chastises his distorted reflection in the elevator doors. Angry with himself for being nervous. Angry that he still cares what Adam will think of him. Angrier, still, at Adam for Paris, for leaving, for coming back.

Angry that he is still so hopelessly in love with him.

He swallows it all down, squares his shoulders, and knocks on the door of suite 659.

“It’s your father’s hotel.” That familiar, drawling voice -- it rocks him back on his heels, dangerously disarming. “You can let yourself in.”

Tony has to fumble for the key card, dizzy.

Adam Jones is still beautiful as ever, just worn down slightly around the edges -- all the boundless, manic energy in him contained. He scribbles in a worn journal, slouching and insouciant on the bed, and Tony has to snap his jaw shut before the frightfully bright blue eyes lift from the page, the journal laid aside.

“Hi Tony.”

For a terrible moment, Tony is rendered completely and utterly stupid. “You...”

“Yeah. Me.” Adam smiles -- amused, beatific. “I’m back.”

“You disappeared.” And the numbness, the shock of it all, begins to dissipate -- replaced by a creeping, bitter fury. “ _ Three years _ , Adam. Jean Luc and I had to close the restaurant. There were drug dealers. Rumors. You --” He cuts himself off, tamping down on his wrath. “What are you doing here?”

Adam does not take his eyes off Tony, canting his head. Thoughtful. “Would you believe me if I said I missed you?”

Tony snorts, rolling his eyes. “Not a chance.”

He knows Adam too well to believe that, no matter how much he might hope.

“Because I did.” Adam levers himself off the bed, all smooth movement and rolling shoulders when he circles the bed, standing toe-to-toe with Tony. And there is  _ something _ in his eyes, something serious and intense. He looks at Tony like he will devour him whole. “I did miss you.”

Tony has no idea what to do with that. 

“Are you drunk?” That can be the only explanation for the way Adam’s eyes rest on him, for the way he is so close, fingering Tony’s lapels. “Or stoned? Or stoned or drunk or something else no one apart from you has ever been?”

He hates the stammer that creeps around the edges of his accusations.  
“None of the above,” Adam proclaims. He looks Tony up and down slowly, one scarred hand moving from his lapel to the silk line of Tony’s tie, idly stroking. Just thoughtful. This is not the first time he has done this. “I got clean -- been sober two years, four months, and six days.” And then, the clever fingers start to loosen the knot of Tony’s tie, a glance flicked up at Tony in askance. Testing boundaries, curious to see just how much Tony will allow.

Tony will allow this.

He will not allow it when Adam asks “what happened to your self-respect, Tony?” as the tie slips from around his neck, slithering to the floor between them. “You used to run the best restaurant in Paris.”

That stirs up the churning, ugly feelings in Tony -- all the bitterness and heartache and the sadness. The  _ fire _ . “Yeah,” he snarls, wrenching himself away from Adam and his wandering hands. “And you  _ destroyed _ it.”

What could have been. What was before Adam and his demons had torn it all down around their ears.

“I know.” And for a moment, Adam at least has the decency to look ashamed of himself, to let Tony see the guilt that has gnawed away his soul. Just a brief moment, and then it is gone; the tenacity sharp and clear in Adam’s eyes, the conviction in his bones. “I know -- I fucked up royally in Paris. But I’m back now. I’m gonna make it right.”

“Oh, really?” Tony settles back on his heels, skeptical and seething.

“Mhm.” Adam hums an affirmative, still so deliberately unperturbed when Tony shrugs him off again. “I'm going after my third star.”

Tony stills, storm clouds descending on his brow. “If you try to start a new restaurant in Paris, there are at least a dozen people who will try to have you killed.” He could probably name half of them offhand if he really wanted to.

“Oh, no.” 

And Adam is grinning, easing into Tony’s space, insinuating his hands beneath his jacket, gripping Tony’s slim waist. Hungry. Eager. The warning look Tony levels his way loses its ferocity in the face of the shiver that crawls along his spine.

“No,” Adam says. “Not in Paris. Here in London.”

The proclamation sinks between them.

“I'm gonna take over your restaurant.”

Tony sucks in a sharp breath. “You bastard.” He spits the words, bites the syllables off sharp and furious with shame and anger burning in his blood. How dare he? How  _ dare _ he? “Did you think I would just forget everything -- all the shit you left for me to clean up in Paris? You think that you’ll come here and I’ll bend over and if you fuck me nice you get to have my restaurant?” He laughs, an ugly sound wrenched from deep within himself as he shakes his head. Humiliated. Furious with Adam, with himself for expecting anything different. “My advice, Chef?  _ Eat your own tongue _ .”

Without missing a beat, with his eyes understanding and dangerously bright, Adam says: “I’d rather it was yours.”

Adam's words strike him like a smack across the face.

Strangely gentle, sincere, Adam holds him tightly by the hips -- refuses to let Tony go. There are things that need saying between them. “Y’know all that time I spent cleaning up my act, I did a lot of thinking.” His warm, heavy palms skim from Tony's waist to settle on his shoulders. There is no playfulness now. “And while I was doing all this thinking,” Adam weighs his words, searching Tony's expressive face for a reaction. “Maybe you came up a few times.”

Tony scoffs, ducks his head. It hurts too much to look Adam in the eye -- to imagine that whatever strange thing it is that lights them is any sort of tenderness for Tony himself. “What? You think that I would be an easy mark, because I am in love with you?”

He says  _ in love _ . Not  _ loved _ .

And isn't that damning?

“No.” Amusement dances in Adam's eyes and -- something that looks like an apology?  _ Oh Tony _ , he thinks.  _ I did it all wrong _ . “No, I figured you’d bite my fucking head off and I’d deserve it -- just listen to me for a minute, okay?” He takes a risk, lays his calloused palm against Tony's cheek, guiding him around to face Adam properly again. There is so much fear in Tony's eyes. Adam owes him kindness, the truth. “Look. I know I fucked everything up then, but I loved you. I really did -- I  _ do _ .”

It’s a stark, naked confession. Adam earnest, speaking more softly than Tony has ever heard him. And Tony... 

Tony has stopped breathing. Feels dangerously fragile, as though a single breath, a blink, might shatter him entirely.

“You didn’t.” It's barely more than a whisper, the words caught at the back of his throat. “You didn’t -- you  _ don’t _ .”

“I do.” Adam strokes his thumb across the swell of Tony's cheek, shifting to try and meet his gaze. “Jesus, it took me long enough to figure it out once I quit frying my brain with coke, but why do you think I always came back to you?”

_ Because you knew I would always let you push. _

Tony does not speak. Swallows down anything he might say. It is too terrible -- too humiliating, the shame curling in his belly at the thought that he could be so easily taken in all over again.

They have been here once before.

Back in Paris when he had been so young, so stupid and full of hope, he had given Adam so many allowances. Had always let him push just a little further than he should have.

Sloppy, graceless kisses when they were both just a little bit too drunk. Adam handsy, playing at seduction with Tony to nurse his rejection from some pretty waitress, from any number of the half-remembered girls in the bars and clubs.

Once -- only once -- Tony had given in. Had hoped for something between them, believed that maybe Adam could love him.

In the darkened Paris flat with it's single room and leaking faucet, Adam had been manic and hungry and -- in retrospect -- probably high. And Tony, wrapped up in hope and uncertainty and want, had said ‘yes’.

Adam had kissed bruises along the column of Tony's throat and Tony had left stinging red crescent marks along his shoulders, had gripped the cool edges of the leaky goddamn sink and let Adam fuck him. 

Such a messy thing, the two of them and all their damage tangled up together. It gnaws at Tony’s insides whenever he thinks about it.

“You were more than just someone to fuck, Tony -- you know that, right?” 

He is still touching, always touching, stroking a forefinger across the softness of Tony's cheek, and It is terribly, keenly obvious that Tony wasn't -- and  _ isn't  _ \-- sure in the slightest. 

Adam sees some of the memory, some of the old, revisited anguish in Tony's eyes and he breathes in slow and deep -- curses himself for being such a bastard. “Damn it. I really fucked it up, didn’t I?”

“Mhm.” The agreement eeks out between tightened lips. Tony cannot bring himself to say anything more for the quaver in his voice -- if he tries, he might just fall to pieces.

“I want to fix this.” It isn't fair for Adam to do this. To be so gentle and to fill Tony with so much false hope. “I want to make amends -- for everything. Paris. You.”

Somehow, Tony finds his voice. Rallies a protest -- give Adam everything and leave himself with nothing but fresh pain and ashes? He can't. He  _ can't _ . “So I hand my restaurant over to you, and it’s you doing me a favor?”

Adam, blunt as ever, rubs salt into the open wound. “If your father didn’t own this place, you would have been fired years ago.”

“Tch.” And isn't this Adam to a tee? Twisting him into knots with a kind hand here and a cutting word there, winding him up so that he can sit back and watch when Tony's head flies off. Tony, though, is too tired, too heartsore for a fight now. “You are not doing a good job of making amends.”

“I know.” Adam sighs, disgusted with himself and his inability to ever say the right thing, his talent for taking good things and turning them always into ruins. “I’m terrible with words. But -- let me show you? You are the best maitre d' in Europe. My kitchen is going to be the best in the world. We're gonna get the third star, and this time it’ll be you and me. Together. The  _ right  _ way.”

This time, something is different. Tony wants so desperately to believe the ragged earnestness in Adam's voice.

And so he makes a decision.

He steps into Adam's space -- closes the gap between them -- and says “prove it” with a fierce, wondrous light in his ochre eyes.

Adam kisses him. 

They crash together hard enough to bruise; Adam’s fingers knotted in Tony’s hair, Tony’s hands fisted in his shirt. And Adam may be a regular Casanova, but Tony will give as good as he gets, the two of them kissing deep, holding each other like they are drowning.

Tony’s suit jacket hits the floor. There is a bright burst of copper when he bites Adam’s bottom lip. His body sings with the thrill of it, the realization that this is real -- that it is  _ happening _ . And it means something.

“Christ,” Adam laughs against his mouth when the suit jacket is gone and he starts in on the buttons of Tony’s crisp dress shirt. “You wear too many clothes.”

Tony’s hands are under the soft cotton of Adam’s t-shirt, exploring the planes of muscle and sinew, trying to memorize every inch. And Adam pulls away just enough, draws the t-shirt over his head and lets Tony look. 

Even all these years later, older and wearier and wiser, he is still gorgeous.

Adam returns the favor, untucking Tony’s shirttails, and his hands -- rough with callouses -- slip past the layers, skimming over the warmth of Tony’s belly, the narrowness of his hips. The both of them scrambling to touch, to feel, and Adam trails his fingertips through the heat at the dip of Tony’s spine, the tender dimples there.

It’s exquisite. Whatever imaginations Tony had allowed himself, whatever memories he had dared to revisit in the quiet nights, nothing came close. 

The dress shirt comes off, discarded, hopelessly wrinkled, and Adam smooths his palms over Tony’s lean chest, drags his mouth along the sweat and bite of cologne in the hollow of Tony’s jaw and delights to taste. To touch. To feel the way Tony -- pressed so close -- shivers deliciously against him.

And Adam skims lower, slips his hand down between Tony’s thighs, to the heat and desire there. Tony jumps, his whole body vibrating with the touch. Adam laughs softly, fondling him through his trousers. “You’re always so jumpy. Do I really make you that nervous?”

_ Yes. _

He terrifies Tony. Exhilarates him. An adrenaline rush and a tender embrace rolled into one lunatic package. How confusing, being in love with Adam Jones.

“You make me furious,” Tony tells him, rocking into the cradle of Adam’s palm. “You make me laugh. You exasperate me, astonish me, worry me --” Each word, hoarse and ragged around the edges, is punctuated by the snap of his hips.

Adam grins, presses  _ just _ right to tease Tony and make him squirm. “‘Exasperate’, huh?”

“I missed you.” Suddenly, terribly vulnerable, Tony cannot help the way his voice breaks. Half-undone. “You bastard. I  _ missed _ you --”

“I know. I know -- I’m here now,” Adam soothes, kissing feather-light bites along the line of Tony’s jaw. He groans. “God, I’m gonna take you apart. C’mon. Bed?”

Tony nods sharply. The thought leaves his mouth dry, turns his tongue to lead. “Bed. Yes. That’s -- yes.”

They peel themselves apart and Tony mourns the loss, bereft without the warmth of Adam, the press of him so close. He struggles his way out of the dress pants that are suddenly so uncomfortable, wriggles out of socks and shoes. And -- he cannot help it -- when Adam strips in one smooth movement, stepping out of his pants, the blush blooms fiercely across his skin, spreading halfway down his bare, freckled chest.

Adam lifts the jeans from the heap on the floor, scuffling through the pockets to come up with a condom and two sachets of lube.

“Oh?” Tony lifts an eyebrow -- amused, amazed by the implications. Adam has  _ planned _ , has waited for him in the hotel room and really truly wanted him. “Someone was very confident.”

Adam shrugs, untroubled and grinning rackishly. “Never hurts to be prepared. No glove, no love -- right?”

Tony goes through several complicated facial expressions at that and then, there is nothing for it -- he bursts out laughing. Throws his head back and giggles at the sheer absurdity of it.

Adam has never heard a more gorgeous sound.

Tony does not see the adoration in Adam’s eyes when he looks at him, but he catches the flash of Adam’s grin; the hand that reaches out to give him a gentle shove in the chest, sending him toppling backward onto the bed. Tony bounces when he hits the mattress, lies beaming in the muss of bed sheets.

Kneeling on the edge of the mattress, Adam drinks in the sight of him -- something hungry in his crystal-pale eyes, like he will eat Tony alive and make him enjoy every minute of it. It prickles at the base of Tony’s spine, makes him twitch -- half anxiety, half arousal. He has never been studied so intently, never been looked at like he is something wonderful.

Adam crawls his way up between the long, slender legs, ignores Tony’s clear arousal in favor of leaning in to press kisses to the quivering span of his belly without breaking eye contact. Tony whimpers at the sight, the sensation of it, and Adam grins into his soft skin, rumbles a happy noise with his face buried in Tony’s stomach.

It is all so new. Wonderful and terrifying, and Tony is entirely overwhelmed by it -- this is not a quick fuck in the bathroom with his pants around his ankles. This is  _ Adam _ . In the light of day. The both of them clear-headed and, maybe, truly in love, and Tony is suddenly  _ shy _ .

“ _ Adam. _ ”

“This okay?” Adam’s blunt, clever fingers find the elastic waist of Tony’s boxer briefs, his thumbs slipped just below the waistband to rub delicate circles into the ridges of his hips.

“Yes.” Tony, breathless, can hardly stammer out the affirmative. It’s more than okay -- it’s enough to kill him. “Yes, I -- good. Yes.” And then, a little desperate, “come up here.”

Adam is more than happy to comply, mouthing his way up the plane of Tony’s stomach, pausing to kiss every freckle, to tease at a dusky nipple with his tongue.

“Adam. Please.”

A kiss planted in the hollow of Tony’s breastbone, at the curve where the floating ribs meet, and then he is there -- eye to eye with Tony -- and Tony strains his neck, steals a quick kiss pressed firm against Adam’s smiling lips.

It is delightful. The taste of Tony Balerdi, the softness of him and all the sharp angles that come with it. Adam catches the waistband of his boxer briefs, slides them down and off in one smooth movement, leaving Tony bare and flushed pink from the tips of his ears to the stiffness of his cock.

A strange thing -- that the sight of Tony, sprawled and disheveled beneath him -- is at once so stirring, and so restful in the same moment. It quiets some lonely, ragged thing in Adam’s soul, stokes a fire in him.

He loves Tony, more than he had ever imagined his roughened, atrophied heart could be capable of. 

There must be something in his face -- some peculiar shift of expression entirely foreign to Tony who is still a stranger to the love of the likes of Adam Jones. Whatever it is, it’s enough that Tony quirks his head, hair mussed against the pillow, frowning and suddenly struck through with a jolt of uncertainty. Fear.

“What is it?” Has Adam changed his mind? Decided that Tony -- Little Tony -- is not for him after all?

Adam says fondly “I’m just lookin’.”

And if Tony were a smoother man, if his silver tongue had not fled his head the moment Adam had pressed the first kiss to his lips, he would offer up a sharp retort -- ask if Adam likes what he sees. But all he can manages is a quiet “why?” with his face in flames.

“Because I can.” Adam says, matter of fact, as he resettles himself. “Because you’re gorgeous. Take your pick.”

Tony curls into himself, embarrassed by the slow perusal. Ashamed of just how much he enjoys it.

“How long has it been, huh?” Adam’s voice is soft as he strokes his hands up and down the miles of Tony’s thighs. “How long since you had someone to take care of you?”

A very, very long time.

And Tony starts to burn with embarrassment, starts to call up the litany of self-recriminations, but then there is no thinking of loneliness, of his own inadequacies, because Adam says “turn over” and he is manhandled up onto his hands and knees, everything bared to Adam’s unrelenting view.

Despite the arousal hot and insistent between his thighs, Adam is in no hurry. He strokes Tony’s hips, soothing. Digs his fingers into the flesh of his bottom, teases him slowly as his fingers slip lower. “This okay?”

“Adam --” His name is ragged, a plea dragged from Tony’s lips as he twists around, a stray lock of hair flopped down, falling loose across his forehead.

Neither one of them will last. Adam tears the wrappers, rolls on the condom. Slicks his fingers with lube. And it must only take a minute, but the moment Tony hears the foil tear, time seizes up and the waiting seems to last an eternity before Adam lays a steadying hand on the small of his back and dribbles the rest of the lube down into the curve of Tony’s backside, lays feather-light fingers against his entrance.

And just waits.

“Adam?” Tony trembles.

“Shhh.” 

A minute shift, a gentle, insistent coaxing -- Tony might just lose his mind.

“Adam, for God’s sake…”

“Impatient.” Even as he chides him, Adam slips the first finger into Tony. And the way he  _ moans _ \-- a needy, guttural sound ripped out of him -- pierces Adam to the quick.

It’s perfect.  _ Tony  _ is perfect. And it’s so easy to slip another finger in, to tease and touch and move within him; like Tony is made to fit Adam. He crooks his fingers, touches Tony just the right way to send bolts of white lightning through his bones.

Tony rocks back against the new pressure, the sudden swell of sensation and Adam strokes him gently, eases him into the feeling -- the white-edged electricity that tingles beneath his skin. And Tony almost cries, whimpering at the loss when Adam slips his fingers out. But Adam is soothing, gentle, pressing a kiss to the dimple of his spine.

“You’re all right,” he promises as Tony’s limbs start to quiver. “You’re all right, beautiful, I’ve got you.”

And then Adam is pressing into Tony, filling him up, and Tony arches his back to accommodate him, taking Adam by inches and purring like a kitten all the while. Adam had never imagined -- had not expected…

He rolls his hips, grinds a careful, liesurely rhythm. Testing.

“Adam.” Tony squirms, bucking against him. Insistent. “Adam, I won’t break.”

No, he won’t. No matter how many times Adam -- vindictive and terrible -- has tried, Tony will not break. But this time, this time Adam does not want to see how far he can press before Tony will give.

It is tremendously vulnerable, the confession he whispers into the nape of Tony’s neck, tasting pomade, sweat, skin. “You’re too important, Tones. You’re -- I gotta be careful with you.”

_ I don’t want to break this. _

Tony -- too-smart, too-tender Tony Balerdi -- understands. Hears what it is Adam cannot manage to say aloud. 

“I love you, Adam.” And he means it. Wholeheartedly. Unreservedly. “Now, please,  _ fuck me like you mean it _ .”

Everything in Adam thrills at the demand. 

_ Little Tony _ .

For once in his life, Adam is nothing if not obliging. He gets an arm around Tony’s ribs and scoops him up, cradles the slender body against his own, pressing them together back-to-front. And -- with one hand braced above the headboard and the other on Tony’s galloping heart -- he snaps his hips, fucking into Tony good and proper so that he shouts, caught up and helpless in Adam’s arms.

It is messy. Sweaty. The two of them tangled-up and knotted in one another. But this is nothing like Paris, nothing like the uncertain boy and the unraveling tragedy they had been then. This is Adam Jones. Tony Balerdi. The way they were supposed to be.

Tony’s head falls back against Adam’s shoulder, completely undone, and Adam  _ loves  _ him, wonders at him -- at the fact that Tony could love  _ him _ , that all of this could be possible.

“Tony.” He sighs his name so reverently -- and even before, when he’d teased and flirted and fondled, he’d never sounded so adoring. “ _ Tony _ .”

It ends too fast. The pair of them scrambling, senseless, rushing headlong over the edge. Tony gasping -- silent -- seeing stars. Adam, a breath later, with his teeth sunk into the curve of Tony’s shoulder.

_ Fireworks _ , Adam thinks, a million miles away.  _ Perfection _ .

Orgasm turns Tony to liquid in his arms, melting bonelessly against Adam. And Adam holds him up, soothes him as they both gasp and pant and cast about for their senses. It takes some doing -- the both of them slack-limbed and spent -- but Adam maneuvers them back against the headboard, Tony folded into his arms, the two of them trading idle kisses, gentle touches. And Tony, trembling, barely able to control his limbs, protests softly: “wait. Wait, the mess --”

“I don’t care about the mess.” Peeling away the spent condom, Adam hauls Tony against his chest, feels the way he trembles with the aftershocks of adrenaline. “I just wanna hold you.”

“But --”

“Jesus Christ, Tony.” He is fidgety, electrified -- his brain kick-started and whirling -- and Adam has to squeeze him tight, has to bully him gently into stillness. He will not let the moment end so soon. “I know it’s the Langham, but it won’t be the first time the laundry service finds come in the sheets. Now, let me hold you god damn it.”

Flabbergasted, gaping, Tony promptly shuts up.

He nestles into Adam’s arms, still nervy with the rush of it all -- sensation, emotion. His long fingers stroke idly up and down Adam’s bicep. Reveling. 

Adam strokes the sweaty fall of his hair, presses his lips to Tony’s crown. And it sighs out of him, quiet. Certain. “You always were so much smarter than me, Tones.” 

“I don’t --”

“Look, I’m a high school dropout -- I’m not that smart. Took me a while to figure it out.”  _ That I love you. That this was right. _ “But you knew. That it was supposed to be us. Together. The  _ right _ way.” And Adam traces his fingers over the reddened bite-mark at the juncture of Tony’s neck and shoulder. Apologetic. Tender. “Sorry you had to wait so long for me to get my head on straight.”

All the perhapses in Paris. All the almosts.

The pair of them, flying apart and falling back together. And now, here they are, like the pieces of a puzzle -- the rough edges and damaged parts worn down, smoothed and polished by time and understanding so that they fit together, at last, so perfectly.

“Is okay.” Tony is quiet, considering. Everything is already laid bare between them, opened up to new potential. A bright future. “Worth the wait.”


End file.
